Tuesday 9 October 2018

Discipline Abroad

"I order that:
  1. Commanders and chiefs of political departments in units must immediately create strict order in their units, mobilize the communists and komsomol members to strengthen and maintain strictest discipline on behalf of literally every soldier and officer. Explain to all personnel that combat in Polish territory requires from each one of them even higher standards of flawless and honest behaviour everywhere and at all times. Each soldier who is chasing trophies, looting, drinking, or being a public nuisance on Polish territory must be immediately arrested and strictly disciplined by the courts.
  2. Anyone who arrives in liberated cities to chase trophies must be disarmed and those who sent them must stand before a military tribunal. Anyone detained stealing trophies will be sent to penalty companies or, if necessary, sentenced by a military tribunal.
  3. Commanders of units and formations of the army must immediately leave the cities after liberation and not allow any units or rear line elements to take up residence in it.
  4. Commandants of liberated cities must immediately block the roads and ensure that not a single soldier can enter the city without proper orders or a pass. Any soldier detained in the city without these documents must be thoroughly checked and prosecuted as a deserter and looter.
  5. For the lack of proper order in Rzeszów, for permitting trophies to be stolen, and for allowing poor discipline among the soldiers, the commander of the 99th Rifle Division Major-General Sarayev is to be reprimanded and removed from his post of the commander of the Rzeszów garrison.
    The commander of the political department of the 23rd Rifle Corps, Colonel Ordov, for the permitting underestimation of the disorder happening in Rzeszów and indifference to highly ranked commanders breaking the military order, must be publicly shamed.
  6. Army Military Prosecutor, Colonel of Justice comrade Feflov must perform an investigation into all recorded acts of criminal theft of trophies and drunken conduct in Rzeszów and present the guilty to the Military Tribunal in three days.
  7. Army Chief of the Rear, Major-General comrade Surkov must deliver his ideas to the Army Military Council regarding radical measures of storing, recording, and properly distributing captured materiel within one day.
Commander of the 60th Army, Colonel-General Kurochkin
Member of the Military Council, Guards Major-General Olenin
Acting Chief of Staff of the 60th Army, Colonel Pupyshev

August 3rd, 1944."

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